


Ritz Affair

by reidrights



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Drag Queen!Reid, Drug Addiction, Fluff, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Male Stripper!Morgan, Past Drug Addiction, Relapse, Whump, implied racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26399008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reidrights/pseuds/reidrights
Summary: Reid always thought he’d be a physicist. But after sending his mother away, he fell into dark times, dropped out of university, and got addicted to dilaudid. During his recovery, he started drag. It’s hard, especially the substance-heavy environment he returns to every night, but it enables him to rediscover himself through art.Morgan always thought he’d be in law enforcement -- just like his father. But law enforcement doesn’t want him, and after a period of self-loss, he embarks on a far different career than he would’ve ever imagined of. To fund his return to school, he undertakes a night-job that both empowers him and leaves him feeling more lost than ever.In a twist of fate, the two meet at the Ritz Lounge -- lonely, lost, but determined to move forward in life.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Elle Greenaway & Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss, Moreid - Relationship, Penelope Garcia & Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid & Emily Prentiss
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Ritz Affair

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter! A little apprehensive (since I’ve never written Moreid), but hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Triggers will be tagged accordingly for each chapter. 
> 
> [TW: reference to past drug abuse, briefly implied racism]

Little did he know that the beautiful stranger grew mesmerized with life, as he with them, in every fluid motion. Lacquer and light accentuates the drag queen’s cheekbones, lending a sort of playful gravitas to each twirl and sashay down the stage. With a final split and a toss of their perfectly coiffed wig, they slink off to the solace of anonymity.

Cheers rebound as their boss returns to announce a _special_ performance. That was his cue. Derek, checking his suit one last time, struts up to the center with a sultry stare that masks his grimace. _God_ , did the baby oil cling to his frame in unsavory ways. The things he did for a few extra tips.

Derek catches the announcer’s eye, lowering into position for his routine. The kitschy tune is his friend as he stretches, a hint of his oil-slicked abs revealed to the audience. Hollers erupt from below — he’s pleased with the energy of this crowd. Nonetheless, he is an entertainer, and cheers are but a precursor to sustenance.

He prowls to the edge of the stage, where a few spectators scream at a volume that challenges how well he can maintain his beguiling countenance. His hands trace down his neck, lie flush against his ass, which he juts out with purpose as they fly back to his neck. As he unfastens his tie, he props himself up from a down-dog stance so he’s sitting on his knees. With a final drag of the silky fabric down his wrists, he tosses it aside, teasing the edges of his suit with the tips of his fingers.

Spencer lounges in the aftertaste of glamour. After the allure of performance wore off, Lara Nyx was just _Spencer Reid_ , college dropout, recovering addict, and the _ex_ -prodigy. Everyone always asked him why he named himself after a part of the _fucking respiratory system_ , and he’d always shrug and cite his past interest in medicine. It was fitting, he supposed, a substitute to the lack of voice he felt in his life beyond the Ritz Lounge. Lara Nyx, larynx, both with the power to woo ranks of admirers and bearing a bravado that was ridiculous.

He was tired, he needed a hit he _shouldn’t_ have, and his wig itched like _hell_. Ever the pragmatist, he knew he couldn’t last here much longer, amid the constant huddle of substances. For self-discovery, he’d stumbled across drag; for self-acceptance, he had to coalesce art and identity as one. Distant screams only serve to exacerbate his present agitation. Whoever was out there put on a scene, for sure.

Shoving on his Converse and ripping off the haystack that was his wig, he makes quick work of his dress, unceremonious in the way he scrubs off his makeup and un-tucks. Spencer shoves his hands in his jean pockets, sidling through the commotion to peer at the spectacle--

\--and he _wholly_ understands their zeal. He’s breath-taken at the sight of the gorgeous man above, peeling off layer after layer to cheers and hands splayed with crisp bills. Most of them are measly one-or-fives, but the second he meets eyes with the stripper, Spencer knows he _has_ to get his attention. Spencer swears, shoving his way back through the crowd to retrieve a fifty. If there’s anything he’s learned from working in the Ritz, it’s how to make an impression.

Lacquer-caked fingers rack his hair, mat from the wig, in an attempt to look respectable, before he rushes out with the money tight in his palms. The second the stripper steps past him, he lunges forward, a slender hand among the sea latching their bills into the elusive man’s grasp. Derek near-stops in his tracks at the fifty shoved in his hand. He squints down at the pretty drag queen he’d seen earlier, natural curls unkempt and traces of makeup smeared on his face. By _god_ , did he look like a mess -- but Derek wouldn’t mind to mess him up a shade further.

“Thanks,” he mutters, and Spencer melts at the low baritone that honeys his ears. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, he stays for the remainder of the man’s performance. He knows he’s one of hundreds, but a part of him hopes that the stripper can feel his eyes ravish each saunter of their sculpted frame.

After a whirlwind of a show, Derek, glistening with sweat and clad in only a thong, swings his hips as he winds through the fervent crowd. All the while, he follows the drag queen out of his peripherals with every step. In his starstruck stupor, Spencer pays no mind to the curl that’s stuck to his forehead, but Derek does -- and he, more than _anything_ in the moment, more than his aching limbs and thirst could ever know, wants to kiss it.

“Thanks again for the tip,” murmurs Derek, once he’s exchanged his formalwear for inconspicuous attire and manages to scrape off the oil from his skin. Spencer nearly jumps from his skin, a flush rising on his cheeks. Had he been _that_ obvious in the way he craned his head about, searching for him?

“No problem,” Spencer sputters out. He racks his head for questions to prolong this conversation, but then again -- he was only a prodigy at _science-technology-mathematics-and-engineering_ , the godforsaken disciplines of STEM, rather than social interactions. Derek fills the pause in their exchange.

“What’s your name?” he asks, a casual confidence emanating from each word.

“Spencer,” answers the drag queen. “And yours?”

“I’m Derek. Derek Morgan. I saw your show, by the way. It was fantastic.” Spencer barely musters a nod, unaccustomed to compliments after years of hearing false flattery.

“So was yours,” professes Spencer, painfully aware of his trashed appearance. “Listen--it was nice meeting you, but I have to change now, see you later--”

“--so do I,” adds Derek. Leveling his gaze at his fidgeting companion, he sweeps the lone curl off Spencer’s forehead and lies it with the rest. “There. I thought it couldn’t have been comfortable, sticking there like that.” Spencer grants him a helpless simper; the tips of his fingers brush against the spot Derek had touched him.  
  
“Thank you,” he breathes, but Derek shakes his head. “You can thank me over breakfast this Saturday, if you’re up for it.” Spencer sucks in a breath, weighing Derek’s proposition against...well, toiling around, re-reading the same comfort books and squinting for new meanings from the same text. He knows his answer before he’s come to terms with the risk of _being known_ again.

“Of course. Where and what time?”

Derek winks. “Your choice, pretty boy.” _Pretty boy - informal, often derogatory,_ he recites to himself, straight from Merriam-Webster. Yet there was a genuine earnestness to the way Derek said it. _Pretty boy._ Spencer could get used to the sound of that.

“The Brew, seven AM.” Derek groans.

“Should’ve known you’re a morning person.” Spencer manages a tight-lipped smile, since, _not really, it’s just ingrained into my circadian rhythm after months of inpatient rehab_ wasn’t exactly an appropriate response to someone he’d known for seven minutes.

“See you soon,” Spencer instead responds, pushing back the thought. If he had hesitated, there was no indication that Derek had noticed. Rather, Derek flashes him a blinding smile, one that Spencer drinks in for an extra second even though a brief glance would imprint it to memory.

Alas, Derek had noticed. He was ex-aspiring law enforcement, after all -- he’d been around enough people to figure out their tells without a bat of his lashes. But he doesn’t press it, not when he’d seen that haunted look a thousand times before. Past friends and colleagues who’d succumbed to life and death, of people and things of physical closeness or grief that embitters the heart, both of which are the greatest tragedies of all. And convalescence, all the same, was brutal. It _hurt_ , it was _nauseating_ , it was an itch that bloomed into ceaseless pain and subsided for only moments.

 _Dear future Derek,_ he had written at thirteen. _If you’re reading this, I hope you’re—_

—he can never read further, at empty promises spoon-laden by the very society which denied him of his humanity.

_So what if he worked his ass off? What had it amounted to? A three-quarters of the way finished degree at Northwestern?_

Derek almost laughs at how scandalized his former acquaintances would be if they knew what he did now.

Heresy, he decides, is but a self-aware virtue.


End file.
